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KAMA AINA
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105 dkk/14€ |
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tracklist:
1.Hotaru
2.Wedding Song
3.Cubali Street Scene
4.Millport
5.Car Song
6.Mud Cat
7.Club Kama Aina
8.Glasgow Sky
Kama Aina releases his 5th album - the delicate and profoundly pretty ‘Club Kama Aina’ on Rumraket, November 6th 2006
Mojo Magazine (uk) 4 of 5 stars! "bewitching neo exotica!"
A multi instrumentalist and crucially, an extensive traveller who throughout his creative life, has endeavoured to seek out and collect sounds and images from the world over. Just for the making of ‘Club Kama Aina’ Takuji Aoyagi aka Kama Aina travelled over Bali and Cuba, to Scotland and back again to Japan.
Wholly fittingly then, the concept behind Kama Aina’s 5th album ‘Club Kama Aina’, is focused on the wanderer – it is a kind of rumination on travelling, if you will. It is intended as an imaginary ‘club’ where Kama Aina and his fellow guest artists (an impressive array of Scottish musical associates, Isobel Campbell, The Pastels and Bill Wells) play music for those who are, at heart, travellers: - those restless, curious, thoughtful folk. Kama Aina is a record characterized by a ‘natural’ yet divine beauty. ‘Club Kama Aina’ is a sweet gem which, to give it a more concrete focus, represents Aoyagi’s exploration and experience of what he calls ‘island music’ (especially that of Hawaii and Cuba). In actual fact, ‘Kama Aina’ is a Hawaiian word for ‘Islander’. Truly it is a fitting name when you consider that ‘island music’ is the common thread running throughout almost all of his works and that, as a resident of Tokyo, Japan, Kama Aina is himself an Islander. There he, together with Maher Shahal Hash Baz and Tenniscoats, is one of the main figures in the currently gleaming Japanese DIY folk-pop scene.
There is overwhelmingly calming feel to this record - it is as if it has the ability to stimulate senses other than the ears (the sheer array of instruments used help make it a record of sublime texture), and to invoke all manner of visual images. If you were to search for a singularly appropriate image to represent ‘Club Kama Aina’, as has already been suggested, the bonsai tree would be a fitting choice. Aside from the somewhat obvious associations it is the fact that those fascinatingly beautiful miniature trees are ostensibly natural and organic, yet in reality are the product of human manipulation and care. Like these trees, miniaturized into pots, "Club Kama Aina" charachterises journeys, places and specifically islands as songs. It has the feel and certainly the sound of something organic, natural and ethereal, although it is the result of delicate musicality, electronics, and precise artistry...a harnessing of nature in itself.
Mojo Magazine (uk) 4 of 5 stars! "bewitching neo exotica!"
Lodown (DE) 8.2 & 9.2 of 10! “wunderbar seltsam entrückte musik”
Angry-Ape (uk): "Already taking the status of an old favorite”
PLAN B Magazine (uk): “beauty in the simplest melodies imaginable”
Taking Notes (UK): “'Club Kama Aina' is a potential winner for my album of the year”
5 stars in a number of larger Danish magazines and papers.
tracklist with details:
1.Hotaru
music by Kama Aina -
recorded in Tokyo
2.Wedding Song
music by Kama Aina -
recorded in Tokyo
3.Cubali Street Scene
music by Kama Aina -
Recorded in Ubud & Havana
4.Millport
music by Stephen Pastel & Kama Aina -
words by Stephen Pastel
recorded in Tokyo & Glasgow
vocal: Stephen Pastel
vocal & pixiphone: Katrina Mitchell
cello: Isobel Campbell
piano: Bill Wells
5.Car Song
music by Bill Wells, Kama Aina -
recorded in Tokyo & Glasgow
vocal & cello: Isobel Campbell
piano & accordion: Bill Wells
6.Mud Cat
music by Kama Aina - recorded in Tokyo
7.Club Kama Aina
music by Kama Aina -
recorded in Tokyo & Glasgow
piano: Bill Wells
cello: Isobel Campbell
8.Glasgow Sky
music by Bill Wells & Kama Aina - recorded in Tokyo
piano & sampler: Bill Wells